00:08:28 Well, I suppose you might call me a "co-founder" of GCC, only because I was involved from the very beginning. To be clear, GCC started as a partnership between Doug Macrae and Kevin Curran. They put up all the money, and took all the risks! Kevin and Doug are really the two founders of General Computer.

Another reason why pac-man did so well was because for the first time, there was an actual character to merchandise. There were no Mascots in the history of pinball and previous video game protagonist's were either space ships and oblongs, so pac-man reached far beyond dimly lit arcades.

In elementary school, our school had shiny floors that would reflect up white spots under where the lights were. I used to run down the halls stepping on those spots pretending to be Pac-Man eating the pills.

The Pac-Man themed graphics look so good! They add a lot to the production value.

This is really interesting, because it explains why in Japan Pac-Man was big, sure, but not as colossal a strike as it was in the US, where it dominated everything because of these four elements. The contrast is Space Invaders, which had the perfect timing over on that side of the Pacific, and in turn created Japanese arcades whole cloth out of essentially thin air, while in the US it is well-remembered but not earth-shattering.

I opened a pinball/pool hall in the mid 70s and the Syndicate split was 50/50. The pinball machines were forever needing repairs, mainly a mechanical relay being the fault. Due to personal reasons we shut down just before the electronic games started showing up, however we had one table top pong that was still state of the art. It was fun but a lot of hours.

PacMan was also one of the last iconic single screen games. In an era when most people had literally never played a video game, you could look at somebody playing and basically see the whole game. Something like Battlezone was flashier, but it also looked waaay more complicated at first glance. Berzerk had multiple screens and you had to not just move but also shoot. If you were looking to play your first-ever video game Pacman seemed way more intuitive because it's just always the exact same iconic maze.

Let's take a moment to appreciate the work that's gone into creating that 80's feel.. the background music, overlay animations, and snippets from news reports. Sir, you are a genius 👏

I believe a major factor in PAC-Man’s success was its simplicity and rapid iteration. While other game franchises grew more complex, PAC-Man remained a straightforward premise that everyone could grasp. It didn’t require a substantial learning curve to master like other games. Nor did it result in the same play fatigue that other titles eventually experienced.

Phil put together this whole video based on advertisements... Genius

It’s wild that pinball was dead by 1979. I mean, I guess that sort of makes sense, but I always forget just how long video games have been around for. Looking it up now, I see The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” song, which I guess was the high point of pinball’s cultural penetration, was released in 1969! So a full decade earlier!

If you're going to talk about Pac Man, you might as well talk about the Game & Watch games as well. Apparently they were originally called Time Out in North America, for some reason, and there were a number of LCD watch-like graphic games that came out too. Those games were forgotten, but Game & Watch is remembered now even if as a Smash Bros character.

I can't believe how watching this video suddenly brought back a memory and made me specifically crave Godfather's pizza.

Well done, Phil. The conflation of the game’s marketplace challenges with the four ghosts is way smart. I was in my early 20s when Pac-Man dropped-maybe slightly too old for arcade culture? My interactions with games like P-M, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Burger Time, Frogger, etc. mostly took place in bars where I was playing gigs or in movie theater lobbies. Anyway, please do keep the bad jokes coming. If you were a ‘70s-‘80s crooner, you would be Barry Pac-Manilow. I will show myself out…

There was an arcade game from 1982 (Changes, by Orca Corporation), that could have been a one up on Pac-Man, but to me didn't cut it: The game design had monsters despawn if the player where far enough away in the maze, only to spawn in a new location that did not fit in with speed of movement; one could see that as a feature like an event horizon, of a strange and wonderful warped reality where the player dips in and out of several layers of a multiverse. -Or it could just be described as a software design that didn't have the hardware to let the game keep track of the player and the monsters. Pac-Man has the whole thing, even with Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, where the mazes went beyond the screen, no problem with locality. A later game from 1983, "Heart Attack" (Century Games), had the gameplay and was brilliant; but both the players, the monsters and the pills where basically tiny dots. -With Pac-Man you get some relatable shapes; you learn patterns of behaviour of the different ghosts, and get chances at both going on the offence as well as being tempted to break a safe path of clearing the maze to get fruit bonuses, or get caught. I love all those above mentioned maze games, but Pac-Man is where the game play and the inputs from sounds and the colours of the monsters gives cues to the player on, and without any glitches (OK, before level 255; but I am not that good, not even close).

pac-man: "i won."

i really like the symploce series, Y X W, why X won. great work phil!

I recently fell down a rabbit hole of pre-1980 electromagnetic and mechanical arcade and penny arcade machines. Not just games, but things like perfume dispensers and punch testers and weird fortune tellers as well. There are a few places that put these early machines side by side with video games and pinball machines. And remember, many cities banned pinball and considered it gambling! (NYC didnt unban it until the 1970s!)

Algorithmic punch! Nice vid, always appreciate your reference and reverence to contemporary primary sources. I have heard the small revival boom of arcades in the early 2000s was related to the introduction DDR machines, and those DDR systems have a bit of interesting cultural history to them that contrasts well to pacman. The pinball parts of your story was an interesting perspective on a shifting industry i had not really considered, and was quite wizard. Moving past that poor pun on anglo-slang, thanks for the video.

It was wild to hear you say "Action Button," didn't think those two spheres of my internet would ever cross. Loved that video - loved this video. Thanks!

About 1985 the laundromat my mom went to replaced the pinball machine with a Pac-Man. I remember my mom was irritated because she would play the pinball, but she eventually started playing it because there was nothing else to do. I was three, so i wasn't allowed to touch it, but i wanted to play. There was an arcade at the mall, and the pinball machines quickly gave way to video games...before long the arcade went away. Heck, they recently ripped the whole mall away.

In 1981, the sounds of Pac-Man was the first thing you heard when you walked into an arcade or bowling alley. The intro music, the waka-waka, the gulping, that woo-woo siren sound…it all cut through the cacophony of the other video games and the pinball machine bumpers and bells.

The early 80’s was the pacman fever age craze and it’s still awesome to this day😁

The game allows players from novice to pro to have moments that seem hopeless and escape from them. Games of that time were either really easy or impossible for the average player. Those close calls and the speed of it was something that attracted players. And advanced players could almost guarantee an audience as early as the key stages. It was simple to learn, Simple to have some great moments but also had something for advanced players.

Never stop with the cheesy jokes Phill I laughed at Pac-Manual

That tiny arcade cabinet is sick

Pac-man itself is a synthesis of prior games, primarily Sega's Head-On wherein the directive is to gather dots from a maze. University of Tokyo's Heinankyo Alien may have been just as influential with its maze filled with monsters the player must fight indirectly.

Interesting history!! Thanks for taking us on that journey 👻❤️

Fun Fact: Pac-Man Is First Video Game Superstar/Mascot! (To Bandai Namco) Before 1980 Fewer Video Game Companies Didn't Know How To Make A Mascots. So We Should Thank Namco For Pioneering Video Game Mascots!

Loved this! Need more video game vids from you! Also loved the quotes from the ghosts. 🤣😍

I'm a youthful 55 but I have been playing Pac-Man ever since I was almost 12 and this game forever revolutionized arcade games. It also spawned numerous sequels, including the great Ms. Pac-Man and this game has existed through endless ports. I have this game in both my PS4 and with my Pac-Man Namco Legacy Cabinet from Arcade1Up and I am looking to get the home cabaret cabinet of Pac-Man's Pixel Bash next year, which has 32 games, including Ms. Pac-Man. May 22, 2030 will be Pac-Man's 50th Anniversary and this is one of these classic games that gets better with age. This is the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time)! Well informed video Phil. Great job!!

I love how you answered the question in the thumbnail. It only made me want to watch it more!

Great macro view of why pac man was successful. While some of business is a good idea and good execution, it seems like a lot of it is timing

Oh spooky. I'm seconds into the video, and I've got that same tiny pac-man machine right here on my desk. Behind me is the sheet music for the pac-man theme song, for Easy Piano. I never thought I was a collector of anything until I went to show someone my Pac-Man stuff. Love your stuff, Phil!

Yowzah, this is/was just so neat, Phil...thanks for following through and getting this particular upload/episode up! Nice that you were able to give us more information on Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, etc. That "Pac Manual" was priceless, and that tiny arcade thingy was so cool (...didn't know that eventually came out) 👍

*1982* World's Fair, Knoxville TN. They had a 100 Pacs on display, and a new-fangled car that could make phone calls while moving. Amazing! of course I didn't keep the tokens, they went to the Pacs.

I got KC Munchkin in a free box at a yard sale several years ago. That game actually had a level editor! Really sophisticated for a system like that.

Recent subscriber, really love the fun, low key, clear, verified educational material. Your style is so right for me. Also you be an info floppeur.

"Pac-Man" was perfect: It was easy to understand, challenging and a game lastet just a few minutes. Still loving it!

I'd like to think that the Pac Manual was written by Pac Manuel.

This was so good! Your videos always holds my attention from beginning to end ❤. Can’t wait to see what’s next!

Geek detail 9:45 The KC Munchkin shown here is the Atari 7800 (1986) version, with higher resolution characters, imo less charming than the 1981 Odyssey² version (In Europe sold as Philips Videopac G7000). It's still a highly playable game. I'm guessing the Atari version must have been an unofficial port due to the 1982 court ruling…

If there was some official top ten list of the most influential games of all time, it'd be an absolute crime if Pac-Man didn't show up on it 😊

Wow- in 13 concise minutes, you reminded me why, as an 'old head', almost no other video game has held a candle like Pac-Man. I first encountered Pac-Man in '82 at my cousins house on the Atari 2600. I wouldn't get my own game until I got a clearance 5200 in '86. By that point, NES with Mario, Zelda, amongst other offerings, was running things, but I still l stuck with Pac

It's interesting that even though Pac-Man won the copycat lawsuit, there still ended up several maze-dot-gobble games both in the arcades and at home, like Ladybug, Thief, Mr. Do!,* Jawbreaker and many more. * Okay, maybe Mr. Do is not a maze game only because you create the maze yourself by your movements (like Dig Dug), but you still have to pick up things to complete the level just like Pac-Man.

Thanks for including a clip of Centipede. 😀💞

Its so crazy to see my fave arcade in a video of yours!

From wheel of cheese, to wheel of fortune. Salut, Pac-Man

Always felt like those pixels in particular were hiding something, excellent vid 👏👏

Context is everything! Great job!

The pacmanual was a good one I give you that buddy! This was an awesome doc Phil, really awesome work! That little arcade machine is awesome btw

Namco was good at targeting different markets. Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga were huge in the US and not so much in Japan. Xevious and Mappy were the opposite.

I remember my dad coming home with an Odyssey system he bought, because it was cheaper than an Atari. It came with Pickax Pete (a donkey Kong knock-off) and CK Munchkin. The cool thing about Ck is that you could create your own mazes. Nattily the first thing I did was build a maze that locked all the ghost in a box so I could just eat all the dots I wanted….I have been discovering life hacks ever sense. It was not long before the shine on that Odyssey rubbed off (along with the letters the system’s built in keyboard) and dad had to buy a real Atari.

My favorite Pac-Man competitor was a game for the Intellivision called "Robots from Hell." The Robots would say funny phrases during game play like, "Put the human into the microwave."

This editing is so good

Like a lot of successes. It was 2 parts good Marketing, 1 part good quality and 1 part legal defense.

I was half expecting everything in this video to be things I already know; mostly because, as you said, most people tend to focus on a lot of the same things. Instead I got a fascinating breakdown of the historical context of a game I'm well aware of but never knew much of the background of. Great video as always Phil.

lowkey your best video so far. glad you packed it all in

I think Crazy Otto looked like the Pac-Man on the marquee and side art of the original Pac-Man cabinet

Another Pac-story; the local department store had one, until some folks with 'Pac-Man' hats on, loaded up the game and took off with it.

Ms Pacman is still a banger.

Woo hoo. My thoughts from Phil's solicitation made the cut... The extra personality ans cuteness of PacMan made videogames something for everybody

Music shouldn't be forgotten either.

Bubble Bobble

While in the 90s the Dot Matrix Display (DMD) became the pinball standard of displaying scores, they started making "minigames" on the DMD for certain pinball machines wich you can classify as a video game. anyways yet another amazing essay Phil Now this makes me wish you did a video on Pinball and why it was banned for the longest time in sertain US states

Thank you for a good trip down memory lane!

Pac-Man won because he was hungier.

Heya! I've studied this period very in depth and am part of Gaming Alexandria who scanned all the Play Meters and whatnot (I also personally uploaded the KC Munchkin case files). This was a fairly good overview of the context - something which I think is missing from a lot of video game history. I did want to bring up a few points. Firstly, part of Pac-Man's success feeds a bit into something you mentioned but did not go directly on. These games were not "arcade" games as such. We use that as shorthand today, but a lot of video games, ESPECIALLY those like Pac-Man, fit into "street locations". Places like 7-11 convenience stores, Pizza Huts, even eventually doctor's offices. The fact that people felt comfortable putting Pac-Man in a cornerstore was an immense part of its appeal. I do also have to caution you saying that operators were part of a "hacker ethos"... The manuals were elaborate as a last resort, but consistently over the lifetime of video games, manufacturers were trying to make servicing easier. Most operators - many of which even in the video era were around in the time before video games - were used to getting pliers and a hammer to fix their machines. There was an IMMENSE struggle to get distributors and operators on board with digital technology, which you will see if you read the early 70s issues of Play Meter, Cash Box, and RePlay. In regards to the kit problem, it was onl a fairly limited concern at the beginning of this period. When you get to 1983 especially, Pac-Man actually became the standard game which many conversion kits (which are different from speed up kits) went into. Games like Mr. Do converted Pac-Man machines by the hundreds to help the operators survive in the lean times after peak interest in arcade games dried up. I'm covering this in a book I'm writing. 9:37 That's an original Odyssey, not an Odyssey 2. The technology is not related, just the name. I would also say the copycats were not really a problem as such, and it was really ATARI who was worried about KC Munchkin, not Bally. They were party to the suit because they needed to be. The ideas around game copyright were still being variously developed and Midway was far from the first company to bring the matter to court. I think you made a fairly good case for how the moment in time really carried things. It was equally true for Space Invaders. To that point, no coin-op game had EVER been produced in that quantity. The potential was there because of how a company like Midway had built itself up. That success carried through to Pac-Man, which was able to hit a broader market. Hit us up at Gaming Alexandria if you plan to cover video game history again!

Here I was thinking that the ghosts were Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde 😅

Ironic that Pac-Man helped launch the video game boom in arcades but also, due to the Atari 2600 port, helped cause the video game crash in the home market.

Amazing video. Absolutely earned my sub!

Or it could be that Pac-Man was simply a phenomenal game. And now I want to go to the local arcade to see if they have a Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man machine.

New Phil Edwards release means the day gets a high score! ❤️

The game was straight forward. You could clearly see the rules and objectives without being told anything, the very first time you play. Your ability was based on how well your focus was primarily, and secondarily, knowing how each of the 'ghosts' behaved. They all had their own behavior. One headed right for you, one always tried to position itself a certain distance from you, one tried to intercept/ambush you, and the other just randomly wondered around. That's it. As simple as it sounds, that was all that was needed to make for a fun competitive environment only ever seen in pinball before. The interesting bit is the game changes once you cross a threshold with your skill. It changes from a game where ghosts are pursuing you into a herding simulator, as exploiting the AI to get the ghosts to bunch up in a corner before eating the power pill is how you beat high scores.

Love this! Pac-man is such a legendary game

Ten year old me was enamored with PacMan. Life time later I play it on my Steam Deck to this day.

I never threw out any of the old gaming systems. One could call me a pac-rat.

Those kits are actually first generation of modding games.

Awesome video, commenting for the algorithm!

I appreciate it when people who deconstruct some part of my youth make a point not to suck the soul out of it. Well-done! 👍👍👍

Pac-Man is like a universal language, anybody can describe it & I'm glad that my footage I got helped tell the story!

The Pac is back.

9:34 Sorry, I'd just like to point out that you're talking about the Magnavox Odyssey 2 whilst accidentally showing a picture of the *original* Magnavox Odyssey. My mind is just boggling at the idea of that esteemed piece of history (the first commercial video games console!) being able to run anything close to Pac-Man. I'm afraid that's a piece of hardware more suited to Pong than Pac-Man. 😄 Still I don't blame you for appreciating the OG Odyssey as it is arguably more notable than its sequel. 😉

Pleasant surprise to see Action Button show up here

How may of you think that the name "Pac-Man" just sounds cool? Fun Fact, did you know that "Pac-Man" was originally called "Puck-Man" as in a hockey puck, makes sense because he's a round character. But when Midway licensed the game for sale here in the US. They wanted the name changed because they were worried that vandals would scratch the arch off the "P" and turn it into an "F". Not only did Midway have the name changed. But they went as far as sending out false copyright infringement notices to arcade owners, threatening to sue them if they had a Puck-man machine in their arcade. Midway put quite an effort in to make sure that no one here in the US ever knew what Pac-man original name was. Which is all the better since the name Pac-man sounds a whole lot better anyways.

Miss Pacman was Crazy Otto? Damn - I guess Some Like it Hot!

The big frog in Frogger kinda looked like a Grateful Dead bear/frog.

My college years were heavily influeneced by Pacman; taking pills, running around in dark rooms, and listening to repetitive electronic music.

Feed the algorithm :) Great video as always

My immediate reaction on seeing this video title was to recommend Action Button's Pac-Man review, so I'm glad you mentioned it and your video complements it nicely, too! Here's another link to Action Button's video for those interested: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fbaqic-FzMDTc5s.html

"I... couldn't afford a full sized one." We all wished we could back in the day.

No link to the epic dubstep Pacman theme? Good thing I already have it (I ripped it from an old FLV back in the Flash days).

Phil you used the C64 homebrew version of Crazy Otto from the 2010s, lol.

I hope you do a story on street fighter and the fighting game genre in the future.

That's a cool take on his popularity. One weird thing for me with this video, from a technical perspective, was that, while watching it on my phone, I could not put KZfaq into picture in picture mode, so I could have the video playing while doing other things on my phone. It works with other videos I watch. But this particular one wouldn't for some reason. Not sure if it's a setting of the channel

I dont how you do it Phil. You just keep putting out bangers, on both here and on vox.

I didn't like playing Pac-Man but I thought its design was excellent. I actually wished I had the patience to practice enough to get good at it.

I had one friend who loves pinball but to him video games were pinball's enemy.

9:20 - Can we just call that Pac-Man in a bad wig "Pac-Ma'am"

Love it